Investors are suing HP over accusations that senior execs hid negative information on multibillion acquisition Autonomy which subsequently led to a share price collapse.
It was only a matter of time before stockholders got legal representation following last week's spat, when HP wrote-down $5bn related to the Autonomy buy, …

COMMENTS

When a farmer goes to town

According to other reports, Mike Lynch indicated that after the acquisition, HP sacked the top 100 staff at Autonomy. I lived through 2 HP acquisitions of the companies I worked for and I can attest to their zeal in driving the post-acquisition costs down. In this case, a company dealing in sophisticated software solutions was bought by a company that basically lives off printer ink and laser printer fillings. No wonder they could not grasp the fact that it takes a little more to produce and sell the Autonomy solutions than their commercial acumen (knowing how much to give and to whom) and primitive mathematics.

Re: When a farmer goes to town

HP'S acquisitions

HP' s golden age came from invention and a willingness to let people take personal risks - there are many many examples of this. A shift to growth through acquisition led by people such as Fiorina onwards, all of whom benefited massively from their failures was the beginning of the end. There is hope for parts of the company - hived off as independent entities - but the company needs to Lear that rewarding failure of senior execs is a road to oblivion